Aside

Contact

Skills

Languages: R, including base & tidyverse (advanced); Bash (intermediate); Python, CSS, HTML, SQL (familiar)

Project management & reproducibility: Git/Github, summary reports with R Markdown, renv, documentation with READMEs, reproducible examples

Data analysis: Data cleaning & wrangling, high-performance computing, SLURM, parallelization, geospatial analysis

Statistics: Linear and mixed models, predictive modelling, multivariate statistics

Data visualization: ggplot2, maps, Shiny apps, dashboards

Communication: Excellent oral and written communication skills including 8 invited and 14 conference presentations, 5 peer-reviewed scientific publications

Funding & Awards

Total funding: $63,329

6 research grants; 2 awards; 2 scholarships; 2 travel grants; 1 workshop grant

Main

Sophie Breitbart

Data Scientist, Ecologist, Evolutionary Biologist

Education

University of Toronto

PhD in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Toronto, Canada

2018 - present

  • Thesis: Effects of Urbanization on the Evolutionary Ecology and Population Genetics of Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca)
  • Advisors: Drs. Marc Johnson & Helene Wagner

Wesleyan University

BA in Biology

Middletown, Connecticut

2012 - 2016

  • Completed Integrative Genomics Sciences Certificate
  • Undergraduate researcher (2013-2016): Minnow biogeography and bacterial phylogeography

Experience

Data Scientist & Instructor

University of Toronto & Blood Tribe

Alberta, Canada

2023 - present

  • Collaborate with the Blood Tribe of the Kainai First Nation to co-create project assessing reservation’s rangeland health
  • Creating an interactive Shiny App to guide various stakeholders through the data analysis while teaching key data science concepts

Data Scientist

University of Toronto & University Health Network

Toronto, Canada

2023 - present

  • Clean, wrangle, and visualize Twitter data for “#TeamVaccine: Exploring the History of Toronto’s COVID-19 Vaccination Initiative through Social Media” project
  • Maintain communication with team and revise deliverables accordingly

Research Assistant

University of Toronto

Toronto, Canada

2018 - present

  • Studied how urbanization impacts reproductive success, genetic divergence, genetic diversity, and population structure of A. syriaca
  • Taught tutorials in data science, statistics, evolution, and ecology

Staff Scientist I

Princeton Hydro

South Glastonbury, Connecticut

2016 - 2018

  • Designed detailed dam removal engineering plan sets with AutoCAD
  • Analyzed geospatial data and generated maps using ArcGIS
  • Assisted developing strategies for protecting water resources and co-authored watershed management plans

Selected Workshop

Fast-R: Making R Work Hard So That You Don’t Have To

SORTEE & CSEE Conferences; Santa Barbara R Meetup

Link

2021

  • Co-designed and instructed workshop about conducting efficient and reproducible data analysis in R